Illinois Parents File Lawsuit Against Son's Alleged Bully

Illinois parents have taken legal action against their son's alleged bully, suing a boy and his parents on their son's behalf.

Matthew and Deveri Del Core filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, claiming their son's fellow fourth grader at a Chicago-area elementary school violently bullied their son Joaquin for the entire school year.

"It was quite an incident for us to go through in our house, and have our son waking up screaming, not wanting to go to school, and crying and feeling that he wasn't safe," Deveri Del Core told ABC News of the alleged bullying.

The lawsuit accuses the other child of causing permanent and serious injury, including harassment on a weekly basis that included "hitting, punching, choking, elbowing, kicking, pushing, spitting ... threatening to kill him, and tripping him on the stairs," according to court papers, filed in Cook County Circuit Court.

"It has been traumatic for my client, it has been traumatic for his parents," said Joel Handler, the attorney representing the Del Cores.

This is not the family's first attempt to address the alleged bullying, the parents told ABC News. The family filed several police reports and told the school about the alleged attacks, but they claim administrators did nothing to stop the behavior.

"At first we were pretty confident that the school would address it, but after a while it became very frustrating to know that nothing was being done," Matthew Del Core said.

In a statement issued Wednesday, the school district said "[W]e value the safety and security of each and every one of our students and staff members and take bullying prevention very seriously."